WILL, DESIRE, AND FACULTY 339 



falsely imagine themselves capable of attaining Book iv 

 wealth, actualises a fruitless desire for it, which 

 might otherwise have remained latent. When 

 education has this effect on a man it is an un- 

 mitigated evil for himself, and very frequently for 

 others. 



Again, education, besides actualising exceptional Education, 

 desires which are wholly unaccompanied by any ex- 

 ceptional faculties that correspond to them, actualises 

 desires accompanied by faculties which are really ^ Ional result s- 



J but not results 



exceptional, and which produce results undoubtedly th at are 



A i_ i complete. 



more than ordinary, but are nevertheless incap- 

 able of complete development. Many men, for 

 instance, have gifts for music and poetry which, 

 though genuine so far as they go, have yet some 

 fatal defect in them, and will never produce, however 

 devotedly they are exercised, any results possessing 

 artistic value. Now the fact that progress is caused 

 by a struggle between exceptional men, of course 

 implies that some of them shall be less efficient 

 than the others. It is by struggling with the less 

 efficient that the superiority of the most efficient is 

 realised ; and in order that it may be found who the 

 most efficient are, the inferior as well as the superior 

 must put their capacities to the test. It is therefore 

 unavoidably one object of education to stimulate 

 the activity of some exceptional men whose own 

 efforts are foredoomed to ultimate failure. Failures, 

 however, differ in degree and kind. Some men fail 

 because they can accomplish nothing of what they The 

 attempt, like the dreamers who have wasted their 



